Seduction Becomes Her (33 page)

U
tter blackness met Charles’s gaze. As Julian handed him his lantern, Charles muttered, “I hope that Adrian is right and that we are on the brink of discovering a smuggler’s den and not….” His lips thinned. “And not something else,” he finished tautly.

“You no more than I,” said Julian softly. Their gazes locked. “If it should prove to be…something else, can you do it?”

Charles smiled icily. “Oh, I can do it. I
must
do it.”

There was one last attempt by the gentlemen to convince Daphne and Nell to wait inside with the others. Huddled next to the house, enduring the slapping branches of the lilac bushes, getting wetter and more frustrated with every passing second, the three men wasted valuable time in a fruitless argument with Daphne and Nell about the inadvisability of their presence during this initial search. Both women stood firm; there was no swaying them.

Her chin held at a pugnacious angle, Daphne said, “We either come with you…or we follow you. It is your choice. We are
not
going to be sent away like naughty schoolgirls.”

Feeling hard-pressed not to strangle his beloved, Charles snarled, “Very well, come with us. But for God’s sake, stay out of the way.”

After lighting the lanterns and seeing that everyone was armed, including the two women, the group gathered itself to plunge into the unknown. Charles hesitated, irritated and worried about the presence of Daphne and Nell. Staring at the pistol in his wife’s hand, Charles flashed her a harassed glance. “Nell knows how to shoot—Julian was her instructor—but are you certain you know how to use that?”

Daphne nodded. “Do not forget, I grew up in the military; my father taught me to shoot when I was ten years old.” She smiled faintly. “I am not a marksman, but I promise you I won’t shoot myself.”

“Bloody well take care that you don’t shoot one of
us!”
he snapped and turned his back on her.

His expression grim, holding the lantern before him, Charles stepped out of the now pouring rain and through the doorway. The others followed him.

Leaving the door open, glad of the faint light from outside and the fresh air the opened doorway provided, they glanced around the room lit with the fitful glow of the lanterns. Everyone was convinced that this was part of the original structure. Smoke-stained stone walls met their gazes. Signs of ancient torches still hung in the crude iron sconces that lined the room; a few pieces of old weaponry and broken furniture were scattered across the floor. The rectangular room was not huge, but it could have easily held several armed fighting men and their weapons. Even with the air blowing in from outside, there was a musty, unpleasant odor, and cobwebs heavy with the debris of centuries draped the corners and decorated every nook and cranny.

The door that provided them access was in the middle of the outside wall, and they did not venture far, bunching together just inside the room, but out of the rain and wind. Motioning for them to wait, Charles took several steps away from the group. His lantern light fell upon an arched opening at the far end of the room. Further exploration revealed a staircase that angled upward. After a moment’s study, he said over his shoulder, “I suspect that this is the same staircase we were on last night. We may not know all its twists and turns, but we know ultimately where it leads.”

Leaving the staircase for the moment, he swung back to rejoin them when Daphne gasped, “Charles! Look! Look at the floor.”

A thick layer of dust lay on the stone floor, but what held everyone’s attention were the three distinct trails of footprints that crisscrossed the room. The first trail led from the doorway where they were gathered to the opposite end of the room where they saw another doorway. A second set of prints ran from the staircase and across the middle of the room and then mingled and disappeared into the first. The final trail had been the one Charles had taken directly from the doorway to the staircase, his damp footprints clear to see in the midst of the pathway that had already been there before he had walked across the room.

Feeling the hair rise on the nape of his neck, Charles stared at those footprints. The pathways were well-marked, but whether one person or several had made the tracks in the dust could not be determined. No ghost had made those trails, he thought tensely. But someone had. Someone who already knew of this forgotten area of Beaumont Place. Someone who had been aware of it and had been using it for some time…

It was Nell who said what was on everyone’s mind. “It is Raoul,” she said in accents of horror. “I know it. I can feel him.”

Julian looked at her sharply. “You said you had no more nightmares.”

“It’s true I haven’t dreamed of him, and I don’t know how to explain what I am feeling now,” Nell said honestly, her sea green eyes wide and frightened. “I just know, as surely as he came to me in nightmares all those years, that Raoul made those footprints.”

“If that is true, then there is no question of you and Daphne continuing with us,” Julian said.

“Julian’s right,” said Charles, coming to stand in front of Daphne. “We cannot hunt him if we are worried about you. You need to go back into the house with the others and wait for us there.”

Daphne shook her head. “How do you know we would be safe?” she asked, her gaze steady on Charles. “If it is Raoul, he is already familiar with this section of the house. Who knows what else he may have discovered? What other ways into the house he might have found? While you are searching for him down here, he could be slipping into the house and doing the very thing you fear.”

Her words were irrefutable, and biting back a curse, Charles stared rigidly at the dark outline made by the doorway at the other end of the room. It was unlikely that there were other hidden or secret ways into the house, but dare he take the chance?

His eyes met Julian’s. “She has a point,” Julian said reluctantly.

“And we would be five against one,” chimed in Nell.

Charles and Julian looked at Marcus. Marcus hunched a shoulder. “Don’t ask me to decide—they’re your wives.”

Charles’s gaze dropped to the trail of footprints. He hoisted his lantern for a better look, his eyes following the path clearly defined on the dusty floor. He knew in his gut where those footprints would lead, and he wondered that he hadn’t realized the truth sooner. He’d wasted all that time and effort searching for Raoul’s hiding place, and it had been right beneath his nose all the time. Beaumont Place.

When Raoul had disappeared down the sluice hole in the dungeon beneath the Dower House, Sir Huxley had been a dying old man, cared for by servants in a rambling, isolated old house. There were no close neighbors. No meddling family to contend with. There was only this very old house, a house, the then-heir had often stated, he would abandon and allow to fall into rack and ruin. Raoul would have known all that—Trevillyan had never made any secret of it. And if Raoul had known of the secret entrance before Sir Huxley had died…

It made perfect sense. His brother had always been secretive, inquisitive, and if he had been considering Beaumont Place before Sir Huxley’s death, he would have made it his business to know everything about the house and its history. Charles speculated that on his latter trips to Cornwall, Raoul had accompanied Trevillyan on visits to Sir Huxley…and had no doubt run tame through the house. It was almost certain Raoul would have made some secret forays, unknown and unnoticed by anyone else, to explore the place and grounds. The awareness that it had once been a Norman keep made it only logical that there would have been dungeons, old fortifications. The boarded up arrow slits were plain to see along this side of the original outer wall of the keep; deducing that there was a staircase or at least a walkway would have been the next step. And if there was a staircase or walkway, it most likely would have a way to access it from the outside. It was true that the door through which they had entered had been concealed behind the lilacs, but as soon as they’d started looking for it, it had been easily found.

Knowing that Raoul had been gravely wounded after he’d dived down the sluice hole at the Dower House and disappeared, it was difficult to estimate how long it had taken him to heal and make his way to Cornwall, but Charles didn’t doubt that he had. Somehow, somewhere, Raoul had survived…and when strong enough, had gone to earth in Cornwall.

Adrian’s house, while not ideal, fit Raoul’s needs, and like a malignant shadow, Raoul had slipped into Beaumont Place and made himself at home in the lower reaches of the house. Charles snorted. No wonder he had been unable to find any hint of his brother’s presence in Cornwall. He felt a rush of gratitude for the little ghost, Katherine. If she hadn’t appeared to Daphne…if she hadn’t led the way to the secret doorway in Daphne’s room, at this very moment, they’d be inside, happily gathered around the fire, drinking punch, unaware that beneath the house….

Charles shook himself. Glancing back at the others, he asked Daphne, “You are determined to come with us?”

She nodded, her fine eyes resolute as they met his.

Giving in to the inevitable, he sighed and muttered, “Everyone stay together. No wandering off to explore. At the slightest hint of something not quite right, say so. We can take no chances. We are entering Raoul’s domain. Remember always that he will not hesitate to kill any one of us.” His mouth tightened. “All of us if he could.”

Silently, they fell in behind Charles as he headed toward the shadowy doorway at the other end of the room. Charles led the way, then Julian, Nell, and Daphne, with Marcus in the rear.

The heavy door at the far end of the room opened to reveal a wide hall. They passed two rooms, one on either side of the hall, the doors half rotten and hanging at drunken angles.

“Quarters, perhaps?” Julian murmured after they quickly examined the rooms.

“They could have been used for something like that,” Charles said. “Ammunition. Food. Who knows?”

Approaching a set of narrow stairs, Charles hesitated at the top, staring down at the black void before him. The scent of mold and decay and something else, something that made his jaw clench and his fingers tighten on his pistol, wafted up to his nostrils.

He glanced back over his shoulder. “He may be down there or he may not, but you must be vigilant. Your lives depend upon it.”

It was a short series of steps, ending in an antechamber that showed signs of being used as living quarters. No attempt had been made to clean the room, the cobwebs, the dirt, and dust from countless years plain to see in the corners and scattered across the stone floor. Unable to help herself, Daphne lifted one corner of her skirts higher to avoid coming in contact with the filth in the room.

In the sconces hanging on the walls, they could see the stubs of tallow candles; a single wooden bed had been pushed against one wall, the thin straw mattress covered by a tangle of quilts. Next to the bed was a small table; a half burnt candle in a brass holder sat in the middle of it. An old armoire had been placed on the far wall. An inspection of the contents revealed a meager wardrobe, but of good quality and workmanship. A doorway lay on the other side of the room; on that same wall, there was a cupboard upon which sat a pottery bowl and pitcher, a dirty pewter plate, and some utensils. Nearby, two chairs sat beneath a scarred wooden table. The tabletop was littered with breadcrumbs, the unidentifiable remains of food, and half empty bottles of brandy and port.

His lip curling in distaste, Charles considered the area, wondering how his fastidious brother with his love of fine food, wine, clothes, and horses could have come to this. Could he have been wrong about Sofia’s jewels? Had Raoul escaped with only the clothes on his back, and had he been living a hand-to-mouth existence all this time? He shook his head. Surely, Sofia’s jewels would have fetched more than enough for Raoul to live in comfort and not in this squalor? Or could they be wrong? Were these belongings and the footprints those of a vagrant squatter?

Charles gingerly poked again through the few pieces of clothing in the armoire. There was a clank as something suddenly tumbled to the floor from the pocket of the many-caped greatcoat he had been examining and landed near his foot. Using his white linen handkerchief, he picked up the object and held it in the light of his lantern. His breath caught as he recognized it—a diamond-encrusted emerald choker he had often seen worn by Sofia.

Julian came to stand beside him, staring at the glittering jewels in Charles’s hand. His voice hard, Julian said, “If we needed further proof that Raoul is alive and has been using this place, that pretty little bauble gives it to us. It is a distinctive piece, and I remember seeing it many times around your stepmother’s neck.”

They spent more time searching through the room and its paltry contents but found nothing else of note. Keeping the choker wrapped in his handkerchief, Charles handed it to Daphne, and she stuffed it in the deep pocket of her dark blue cashmere gown for safekeeping. The weight of it was a reminder of Raoul’s presence and Sofia’s perfidy.

Approaching the door on the opposite side of the room, Charles pulled it open. Another flight of steps met his gaze, and the scent of blood, of death, of evil flowed into the antechamber like London sewage from a storm-swollen gutter. Filled with fury and fear at what he might next find, he sped silently down the crooked staircase.

The stairs stopped in a large room. Glancing around at the heavy manacles that draped the smoke-stained walls, no one needed the sight of the four cells to know that they were standing in the dungeons of Beaumont Place. A huge fireplace lay at one end of the long room; an assortment of instruments whose ugly purpose needed no explanation lay carelessly on the blackened hearth. A bundle of faggots stood against one side of the fireplace.

There was no sluice hole in this dungeon, nor was there the bloodstained slab upon which so many women had died screaming for succor. There were, however, the remains of an old rack, the evidence of new repair bright against the old wood and metal. More disturbing were signs that some of the bloodstains on the stone floor around the rack could not have been there for centuries. Charles knelt down for a closer look. They were not fresh, but they were not very old, either. Rising to his feet, he glanced at Julian and Marcus and nodded curtly. They had found the Monster’s lair.